Where I’m also getting bamboozled is in the area of newcomers being treated with suspicion. I thought I’ve seen paranoia concerning the political underground, but man…. oh man. Read what’s happened concerning the Ultimix torrent, and you’ll see how those who believe that a New World Order is coming to take away the liberties of everyone are put to absolute shame when it comes to being scared and paranoid. I dare say that those who claim that a tyrannical world government is coming may sound a lot more sane (and are) than the individual who has been “cyber-stalking” Justin in an attempt to smite him. I also know for a fact that these same individuals who have such “crazy notions” actually have lives away from the computer.

So to the person on linuxtracker.org who just had “their time of the month,” please….. grow up and get a life (away from the computer).” What is it about FOSS that attracts people to treat newcomers to that way? Whether it is the beginning of creating a new distribution by using an established one as a base or sharing something on bittorrent, it’s time to stop treating them like idiots and simply explain things to them when something is done incorrectly. This whole idea of RTFM is not only rude and unprofessional, but inhumane in my view. Yes, America is not the entire world, but neither is any other country for that matter. We’re all in this together. If we can’t treat each other as human beings, then why are we bothering at all?

The reason why I wrote this rant, then edited it was simple: Justin Breithaupt, a colleague on this blog was first attacked for his religious faith, which he never brought up on the PCLinuxOS forum. Then he gets slack for the creation of Ultimix or the idea thereof or something to that effect. Ultimix a mere remaster? Tell that to the guys who make Pioneer Linux! They call it a distro, so get over yourselves. Am I saying that everyone from PCLOS is horrible? Of course not. There are wonderful individuals such as devnet from Yet Another Linux Blog. I see a problem however. Egos. If the issue of ego is not overcome real quick, then FOSS may have problems being adopted in the future. This is the same obstacle that caused Microsoft as a company to have problems in the first place. Read David Bank’s Breaking Windows for a better idea of what I’m talking about.

“I tired to do something nice for the community by improving on PCLinuxOS but instead I am being percecuted and harassed. I have been discriminated against for my personal beliefs even though I didn’t express them in any forums ever.” — Justin Breithaupt

On an end note, I tried having Computer Rescue (Pomeroy, Washington business) listed as a PCLOS vendor, since Justin uses it to help sell computers. I noticed that the thread got deleted. So this isn’t the first time that Justin’s business has been given the cold shoulder. I am really starting to not like the PCLOS “community.” It appears to be too territorial for my liking. Isn’t FOSS supposed to allow the transcendence of digital territory by allowing and encouraging people to share with one another? Also, keep this in mind: this isn’t the only story I’ve heard. I’ve heard of others and they were nastier. There’s a reason helios states, “Don’t bring distributions, bring solutions.” concerning The Tux Project. It’s also why these guys here don’t have a good impression of the rest of FOSS supporters: it’s too much of a reminder of Soviet Communism (though they have their own issues as well).

It’s time to take a long hard look in the mirror. It’s time to stop with the petty nonsense and name calling. This isn’t about making distros anymore: it’s about sharing and sharing alike, which is what the Free Software Foundation has preached all along. There are those who may make the claim that users don’t care about freedoms 0-3. I disagree. If you can relate these freedoms to a casual user or a mom and dad, they will not only understand, but they will care. The first step however, is to treat each other like human beings and knock it off with the flaming towards another person. Kudos to MyPCLinuxOS for taking a more diplomatic path.

To the person calling Justin a liar: did it ever occur to you that it was his first time doing something like this and that he did not fully understand everything entailing the creation of a custom CD/DVD, let alone the creation of a torrent file? Yes, he e-mailed me what you said to him, and yes, it was uncalled for. So here’s a suggestion: why not agree to disagree and both of you can go your separate ways? Now, let’s move on to more important things.

3 Responses to “When is a Distro not a Distro?”

MyPCLinuxOS has not ousted me yet and I would like to keep it that way. I’m grateful to KDulcimer for giving me a second chance to prove myself. I in no way want to say anything bad about the MyPCLinuxOS community because of their acceptance. I don’t feel that the MYPClinuxOS community should be judged for what newmikey posted. I don’t plan on advertising what I’m doing with Ultumix for a while on any PCLinuxOS related sites to help my impression on them. I don’t think I will need the publicity because my new leechers and seeders in the Linux community speak for themselves. Hopefully by Christmas I will have a product that everyone can smile at. I agree with what I’ve been told about the distro wars and how the Linux community is not united. Ultumix might be the ambassador or federation that ties everything together because of it’s purpose which is to make any package installable on one distro. I haven’t achieved that yet. I need a better package manager and installer. I also need artwork and community support. I might be working with WSU in the next few months on making a WSU edition for sports fans. This will increase the popularity of Ultumix by at least 100 users at the college if it all goes according to plan. The different variants of Ultumix should suit anyone for any purpose. I would be nice if the Linux community could get past it’s maturity stumbling block but at it’s present time it seems that the maturity of the Linux community is at age 7 – 13. I have high hopes that a federation of sorts could increase this leval of maturity to an average age of 18.

Understandable, and yes, I probably edited it after you posted that comment there. I’m simply sick of people being on the attack all the time. My issue again was not with the entire group who supports PCLOS, but with those who seem to be a bit territorial for my liking.